Anticipating the Journey

Mrs. Hing, my photography teacher’s wife, once told me that the anticipation is half of the journey itself.

This is something I wrote exactly a month ago, in Uncle Jon’s apartment in Battery Park, NYC. It kind of cracks me up.

1.28.2007

I don’t know if I will be able to connect to the internet this way. I am at Jon and Bev’s house in Battery Park, NY, NY. I have a feeling that internet is going to be an interesting adventure on my trip. For example, last time I was there, Hana “Abdo”’s house was the only place I remember there being a DSL connection – well, Mohammad’s must have also, they had a freaking servant.

I’m hoping that I will be able to strike up a connection with the owner of an internet café somewhere – that the street with the most internet café’s in the world will have a place I can connect with my wireless, or that there will be some sort of resource on campus. If not, that would be…

I know that these things are possible in Paris.

What’s not possible is that soon I will BE in Paris.

Seriously, I feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head. I got a grand total of 5 ½ hours of sleep for the past two days. Which is the worst it’s been, so far!

Krista, Trevor, and I walked to Ground Zero. It was…[insert a non-vanilla pudding adjective here that expresses awe and sadness and depth].

Oh boy!!!!

I didn’t realize to what extent the internet would be a problem here. I don’t like using the Language Center’s computer labs. The internet is slow, doesn’t work half the time, and the guy in charge of it has this air of naswangi – he looks at girls in a funny way. Creepy is a pretty good translation into colloquial English.

So I’ve been trying to find a better way to connect to the internet. Three new possibilities arose:

1. Aihud Abu-Sha’ar’s office

2. this one nice internet café down the street whose name I forgo

3. dial-up at home!

Aihud Abu-Sha’ar is the guy in charge of International Students. He is funny, kind, and trustworthy. He helped me with my visa. His office is friendly and welcoming, and I feel comfortable there (so far, the classroom, church, and home are the only places I don’t feel super tense). There are always international students coming in and out, and friendly teachers and counselors.

The name of his office cracks me up, though. “Office of Ex-Patriot Students.”

Yesterday I met an Iraqi from Tekrit. Aihud joked around about having an Iraqi and an American in the same room. Last time he lived in Iraq, Saddam was in power. Really, really, really interesting to listen to him.

Today I met a few girls from Egypt, one from Syria, and some from Maghreb.

Yesterday I met the only other non-Arab American at Yarmouk. His name is Adam, he’s from Tallahassee, he’s here on a Fulbright. Aihud connected us – he said, “Hey! You should meet Adam!” He gave him a call, and fifteen minutes later I was speaking thick, sumptuous, INTELLIGENT English! It felt good. Understatement.

Today, after a Turkish Cultural Event/music concert hafla, Adam showed Pina (a girl in the language center from near Naples, Italy) and me this café down the street with free wireless internet. I guess you are just supposed to buy something, like a Pepsi; Adam said the owners let him stay there for hours. It was clean, and there were tanks of goldfish.

I figured out how to use a dial-up connection from my phone line here. It really boosted my ego; after hours of pretending like I understand what people are saing, my technological feat made me feel better about my intelligence. Maybe that’s why talking to Adam felt so great; it was real-time, living proof that I can maintain an intelligent conversation.

About 20 minutes ago, I helped my Arab dad with this neat temperature box contraption. The family farm has lots of chickens. He needs to regulate the temperature of the eggs, so he bought this temperature thing, but didn’t know how to change the degrees from Celsius to Ferenheit, or how to set maximum/minimum temperatures. I fiddled around with it, figured it out, and then taught him. “Aseenti! Aseenti!”

Good day today.

And EFY set up a phone interview!!!!!